Master of Arts in Cinema and Television

Hybrid

Mission

The Department of Visual and Performing Arts is founded on the belief that art is a fundamental force in national and international culture, and that one of the primary standards by which societies are judged is the quality, creative freedom, critical insight, and formal and technical innovation of the visual art they produce.
The mission of the department is to provide students with the best possible education in the field of visual arts. The department has a long distinguished history of forming artists of the highest caliber. A full-time faculty of working artists, in conjunction with a diverse cross- section of accomplished visiting artists, collaborate to foster an environment where the unique talents and perspectives of individual students can merge and flourish.

Program Educational Objectives

1. Graduates from the Master program will work successfully as professional members of the film production process. They should be able to work in a broad range of positions involving tasks such as writing a scenario, directing, editing, recording and designing sound, and production.
2. Graduates will have the ability to produce their own personal fiction films.
3. Graduates will have the ability to function and communicate effectively in the field of cinema as well as work as ethical and social individuals in society at large.

Program Outcomes

a. Students will acquire knowledge of critical and theoretical methodologies and their application to film.
b. Demonstrate in critical essays and oral presentations an ability to analyze films via a variety of theoretical perspectives while using the critical vocabulary and methodologies of the discipline.
c. Develop a thorough understanding of the fundamental disciplines inherent in motion picture including acting, producing, directing, writing, cinematography, editing, and sound.
d. Generate and develop ideas for film that include writing from personal experience, and translating these ideas via visual and aural acuity and technical excellence.
e. Function effectively on an individual as well as a group level in order to produce a communicative cinematic product.

This course aims to enable students to present visual and performing arts criticism in correct scholarly form, to introduce them to different methods of carrying out research and to acquaint them with the methodology used in classifying bibliographies and reference works relevant to the subject area.

Students will discuss in class issues related to films and other arts, plus weekly film screening. Studies in interrelationships between on the one hand film and on the other painting, dance and theater, through examination of such issues as the different modalities of presence in film and theater, the various functions of the frame in film and painting, the correspondence of the freezing that is part of the cinema apertures (frozen frames), and the diegetic freezing of the dancer. May be repeated twice for credit.

Students will participate in discussions in class, screenings to be arranged. Studies of several critical discourses that have influenced the analysis of film: Walter Benjamin’s “work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”; Althusser’s interpellation; Lacan’s mirror’s stage; Virilio’s dromology and logistics of perception; Debord’s society of spectacle; Edward Said’s orientalism, etc.

This workshop consists of a discussion, lasting for three hours, and a laboratory, to be arranged. It is designed for graduate students. They will study the basic techniques of film production, including preproduction planning and production of a short group film.

Discussion and creation of different styles of lighting through exercises on the electronic medium, aimed at developing the skills of the director of photography to master the craft and establish a style.

Supervised filming of short dramatic projects on the sound stage and at exterior locations that explore the complexity of the process, emphasizing the balance and collaboration essential to both directing and photography in its varied technical, production, and creative aspects.

Students will acquire technical know-how in supervised exercises on a stage or in an exterior, and in screenings of scenes. Students will participate in discussions aimed at learning to master the lighting to create an appropriate mood or atmosphere of a premeditated scene recorded on a film or through an electronic system.

Through advanced problems in the field of screenwriting, students will acquire professional know-how in documentary and feature film writing, using discussions and exercises with an emphasis on research and preproduction.

Students will use this course to complete an independent or team project. This project will help round out a student’s portfolio and will demonstrate an appropriate level of professional challenge. These projects may be a narrative film, documentary, animation, website, or mobile application, or they may be a thesis relevant to the field of specialization. Students will form a contract with the faculty concerning the content of their project. Completed projects will assist students in the professional or in the academic field.